Businessman tied to Mexico scandal pleads guilty

Updated 8:20 pm, Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Ricardo Viso Seligson, front, walks to a transport van with other prisoners, Monday, July 1, 2013, at the Federal Courthouse in San Antonio.

Ricardo Viso Seligson, front, walks to a transport van with other prisoners, Monday, July 1, 2013, at the Federal Courthouse in San Antonio.

Photo: Darren Abate, Darren Abate/Express-News

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Ricardo Viso Seligson, left, walks to a transport van with other prisoners, Monday, July 1, 2013, at the Federal Courthouse in San Antonio.

Ricardo Viso Seligson, left, walks to a transport van with other prisoners, Monday, July 1, 2013, at the Federal Courthouse in San Antonio.

Photo: Darren Abate, Darren Abate/Express-News

Businessman tied to Mexico scandal pleads guilty

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A San Antonio businessman accused of using bank accounts here to help shift money to and from Mexico has pleaded guilty to charges that he ran an unlicensed money transmitting business.

Ricardo Viso Seligson, who was born in Colorado, grew up in Mexico and owns a home in San Antonio, faces up to five years in prison when he's sentenced in November.

Viso and an associate in San Diego, Calif., used bank accounts to shift around millions of dollars that appeared to be from the sale of cellphones imported from Mexico, court documents state. The phones, however, were fakes.

Mexican news media have reported that country's federal electoral commission is investigating whether Viso received checks from a political party started by a jailed former union boss there, but his lawyer said those claims are unfounded.